Dazzling Dexter

Too many musicals in London? It depends whether you think the West End should be a temple or a funfair. Room for both, I’d say. But the fact that many musicals are thriving doesn’t mean any musical will. Hit shows succeed because they get virtually everything right. Bad Girls gets three out of five things right. The stylised sets are magnificently gruesome, the acting is terrific and the lyrics are pert and witty. But the tunes are forgettable and the plot is mishandled. The writers style themselves ‘story drivers’ so they should decide which car they’re in. They’ve got half a dozen excellent storylines here and they want to keep them all. Mistake. What’s needed is a single central arc for us to latch on to — a core. All they offer is ‘crimz wiv artsa gold’, and that’s not enough. The script jumps up and down like the FTSE and you never know where it’ll land next.